


Spines Through The Water

by blcwriter



Category: Godzilla - All Media Types
Genre: Criticism, Gen, Humanity, Meta, Other, Spoilers, monsterdom, movie criticism, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter





	Spines Through The Water

I'm reading reviews of the Godzilla film (film, like it's art and not just a circus, projected onscreen) and thinking-- boy, Anthony Lane just doesn't get it. Sure, snappy dialogue & good jokes would be nice, good acting too, but the point of any and every Godzilla film is Godzilla. Period. Exclamation point, even, dig in with the tips of one of the spines on his capable back. If you get some token A-lists to chew scenery and one of them happens to know how to say the monster's name with the "right" "Japanese" intonation, then, well, they've done their job. Of course there's going to be some kid in peril, some stupid sideline love story to propel the "action" along, a landmark bridge or three to threaten or wreck, a city or five that gets smashed. You can throw all the ecological or cultural subjugation/appropriation or globalization or global warming or nuclear threat metaphors you like at the screen-- heavy-handed dialogue about all the wasteful and stupid things humans do is all well & good, it's not like it isn't true, but the point of it all is this, at the end:

Spines, rippling through water. Strong, scaly thighs stomping onto the shore. A monster so big he re-defines awesome each time we see him, each time we re-do him in clay or plastic or hi-def CGI-- he's hard to grasp except in glimpses-- lashes of tail, swipes of his stubby yet capable arms, that instantly recognizable (and always surprisingly higher-pitched than we thought it would be) roar that he has, as he throws his head back and says, in his way-- move it, I've got this, this is bigger than anything that you can handle, and I've emerged, yet again, from the depths of your oceanic subconscious to defeat all the monsters-- the Mothras, King Kongs, the aliens from outer space-- that your small monkey brains can only shoot guns at, or nuke, when we all ought to have learned from the last dozen films that the nuclear option is not the end of the story, it's just a waste. When Godzilla roars, it's just the buildup, and while he might go down, he always gets up-- in the end, he rips off Mothra's head and screams lightning down her throat, crisping her into insect BBQ that always has us roaring hooray, even as Godzilla himself thows his head back again to let loose that primal yell of "I did it, all by myself." Sure, the humans might have lit a nest of eggs on fire, maybe, but who's to say Godzilla wouldn't have gone back and done it himself once the real fight was through? The point of Godzilla is this-- the monster, rising once again from the dust and the wreckage, surveys the bodies of the more monstrous monsters strewn about, then snorts to himself in private amusement as the monkeys on shore cheer and he slides, once again, into the ocean, cool and home. Godzilla, the king of the monsters who saves us from ourselves when we don't know what to do. Godzilla, Prince Charming, swims off to his underwater castle again, spines cutting through blue-green until it's time to submerge, and we, a whole race of Princesses, wave from the shore, not certain when he'll return. We know one thing for sure; poets will tell tales of the deadly lash of his tail and the blast of his death-ray until those spines through the water are sighted again.


End file.
